Latest News
|
Marchers oppose BNP's 'festival of hate' Read on...
 |
Youth Against Racism condemns Cllr Henry Reilly comments Read on...
Unison: Four banned from office for three years Read on...
Threat of water charges will be met with non-payment Read on...
Lindsey oil refinery workers secure stunning victory
Read on...
International News
|
Italy: Workers fightback grows
US: Eight years since 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan
Britain/Libya: Lockerbie bombing: cynical actions of capitalist governments exposed
Belgium: Antwerp - repression used to force through anti-veil measures
Southern News
|
10,000 Electricians on Strike Read on...
Socialist Party Statement: Building a new mass party for working people Read on...
Elections: Socialist Party defeats Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein
Read on...
Fianna Fail & Greens take a hammering
Read on...
Blasphemy!
Read on...
Ryan report exposes Church & State child abuse
Read on...
The Joe Higgins Column
Read on...
International Solidarity Campaigns
|
Campaigns
Force Assembly to
NATIONALISE TO SAVE JOBS... NOT BAIL-OUT THE RICH!
More than 2000 manufacturing jobs have been lost locally in the past two months alone. Retail and service jobs are being lost as shops and food outlets close due to the recession. This is an emergency situation that demands emergency action.
But instead of taking measures to deal with the crisis, the policies of the Assembly are just making it worse. Their response is to axe more jobs – through privatisation or by direct cuts in public services.
Urgent action needed
Those workers now facing redundancy and their families are not the only ones who will suffer. It this continues there will be nothing for the next generation other than dead end jobs or maybe work in a call centre.
We need action now to oppose the job slaughter and to fight to defend workers rights. The workers at Visteon showed that it is possible to fight back. Their action in occupying the factory at least forced Ford and Visteon to come up with a significant redundancy package.
Had the trade union leaders spread this struggle by organising solidarity action in Ford and other workplaces, the jobs might have been saved also. If Ford did not re-open the plant pressure could have been put on the government and the Assembly to nationalise it and use the skills and the machinery to produce products that are useful to society.
Launch campaign for jobs
The unions now need to take up where the Visteon workers left off. We need a massive campaign to save jobs in both the private and the public sector. This campaign for jobs must put pressure on the Assembly to put in place the emergency measures needed to give everyone the opportunity to get a decent job.
It should demand that the Assembly:
- Nationalises all companies that either announce closure or significant redundancies and run them democratically.
- Halts all proposed job cuts and reverses privatisation in the public sector. Instead public services should be expanded to create jobs and satisfy need.
- Guarantees everyone either a job or education / training that will lead to a guaranteed job.
- Guarantee proper conditions and trade union rights for all workers.
Water charges plans sinking into defeat
By Gary Mulcahy, We Won’t Pay Campaign, 8 April 09
The planned introduction of household water charges next April looks to be in serious doubt. It seems the parties in the Executive have privately admitted to themselves that they haven’t a hope of making people pay, despite their best efforts to disguise the introduction in some form next year.
The mass opposition to the charges and the support for mass non-payment which has been built by the We Won’t Pay Campaign has not dissipated. In fact with record job losses and falling incomes, the potential for mass non-payment is now greater than ever. It is this fact which has led the Executive parties to realise if they go ahead with their plans to introduce water charges next year, they face almost certain defeat.
So the tune has changed in recent weeks. Minister for Finance & Personnel Nigel Dodds claimed in April “it is impossible at a time of great economic hardship and challenges for businesses and communities and hardworking families that you could impose these kinds of burdens on people.”
It was the We Won’t Pay Campaign which beat the arguments of direct rule Ministers that people in Northern Ireland do not pay for water. The parties in Stormont had to accept that households already paid for water through the rates. This fact has also restricted their ability to justify water charges as they would need to be seen to reduce rates, which is now virtually ruled out given the Executive’s fiscal crisis.
Minister for Regional Development Conor Murphy has proposed to the Executive that water charges be deferred, yet again, until 2012 (after the next Assembly elections). The We Won’t Pay Campaign has called for the Executive to formally announce the scrapping of water charges. It has now been proven that water charges are not needed to secure funding for the water service. The reason for water charges was never about funding the service. The real reason was to prepare a revenue flow so the water service could be privatised. If a decision is taken to defer water charges yet again, the We Won’t Pay Campaign can proudly proclaim a great victory.